Must Visit places in Warsaw

After our First Day at Warsaw...early next morn, after a sumptuous breakfast and despite a slight drizzle, we set out for the Museum of the Uprising,/ Warsaw Rising Museum which is a 5 mins walk from our hotel.

As we enter the interactive Museum of the War of uprising....the story about the silent underground resistance of the Polish army vs the Nazis before the Soviet Red Army came in. It is an interactive Museum,which creates the dark atmosphere during the 1944's through lighting and artifacts ranging from actual weapons used to love letters and scribbles...quite emotional. We spent nearly a couple of hours there.

As we wait for a member who has misplaced his umbrella, we chat up with this girl, who stays in Krakow and is waiting for a friend who is inside the Museum. She tells us, we should not miss visiting the St Marys Basilica and listening to the bugle play every hour. . ..Oh and yes, the umbrella was found!

We then take a tram to the Starting stop of a Retro Tourist Tram, of which we had come across in their ZTM website

When we reach the bus stop, to our excitement, we find one tram, waiting ....just for us.... :).

And when we stepped inside, our jaws fell apart. It was all done up in retro wooden style with retro music. With the drizzle outside, listening to music and passing through interesting places, it was definitely a huge experience.

After going through most of the stops we get off at Old Town Square, to spend time there. So much to see and do....street artists, horse carriages, souvenir shopping, a wedding photo shoot too. We walk through all the little lanes, do a little amber stone shopping too..I think the shop was called Amber palace...

From the Old Town Square, we walk through this sheltered platform, through a tunnel, down some stairs to reach our Stare Miasto Tram stop.

As we head home, we get off at a tram stop. We are tired, but there is so much to see yet. We take a shot of Vodka and set off. We decide to go to a local market, which has a food court, Hala Gwardii.

As we walk towards a transit point, we see some wall plates with writing. We Realize to our wonder that we are standing on historical grounds in Grybowska... "To the memory of those who suffered, fought and perished"......"Here stood a Ghetto entrance that was in operation for the entire period of the ghettos existence.." (1940 - 1943)

This was part of our itinerary, but we had forgotten about it. But our itinerary hadn't. It followed us. We looked downwards to see the metal plate markers which outlined what had once been the boundary walls of the ghetto. In Fact, here was the most iconic...shown in movies,...place of the FOOTBRIDGE OF SIGHS CONNECTING TWO GHETTOES. Only the Germans could use the road below. The inhabitants of the ghettoes would walk the bridge and sigh as they could see the outside world..church and local market Hala Mirowska...but would be shooed by policemen to keep walking...now a Warsaw Ghetto Memorial...4 metallic poles with fibre lights create the bridge by lights...a memorial to those , no more..

Photo Credit of pic 2: http://www.siger.org/warsawghettomaps/

Photo Credit of pic 3: https://thebudgetsavvytravelers.com/2018/08/22/warsaw-ghetto-bridge-memorial-everything-you-need-to-know/

And if you closely at this pic, at the extreme right, you will see what we missed, but our mobile camera didn't: Keret House, the narrowest house in the world.

These were some free travel hacks we used to experience in Warsaw. They were all in the backyard of our hotel, so to say. And some of them were free or covered under Travel card.

We passed by a church and reached Hala Mirowska/ Mirowska market, a local Polish Market..scenes which the Jews walking on the three storey high Foot bridge in Grybowska would have sighed for.

At last we reached Hala Gwardii, the Local food court. I could actually feel the pulse of Poland. It was as if my hungry soul was quenched as we listened to the strains of John Lenon's, "Imagine", and ate some ravishing Polish dumplings, freshly steamed by a timer we were handed over..

As we walk into another European sunset, the impressions keep floating.. The Place....the old traditional and yet so sleek and modern. The People.....good looking, polished but reserved...with reason to be...historical scars....German holocaust... after the Jews, maximum no of Polish people were executed or gassed as entire families, neighborhoods were evacuated as they were found sheltering Jews....then came WW II....after that came the Soviet oppressive Communism, which they could throw off only in late eighties...